The Government is considering the creation of an oilseed buffer corpus like the pulses buffer. This development comes even as the purchase of oilseeds is allowed by the Centre at the minimum support price (MSP) after the approval of the Agriculture Ministry. A separate fund may help States undertake oilseeds procurement and store it for sometime to help prices stabilise before selling it in the open market.
“If the proposal is accepted, ₹500-crore revolving fund may be announced in Budget, exclusively for oilseeds procurement so that farmers never feet distressed, particularly when market rates in harvesting period plunge 20-30 per cent below MSP,” said a source. The price stabilisation fund on tur has helped, to some extent, stabilise prices after they crossed ₹200/kg in 2015-16, the source said, adding a similar model may help oilseeds farmers to at least stick to the crop even if they do not want to increase area.
The plan will help farmers get the MSP for their oilseed crops, while also ensure the Government is able to achieve the objective of the National Oilseeds Mission.
Shifting to maize
The government is keen on increasing the production of oilseeds crops. In the case of soyabean and mustard, farmers have shifted to maize and chana (gram) this year, partly due to weather and also due to prices, raising concern over the national mission on oilseeds that targets to increase the output to 69.7 million tonnes (mt) by 2030-31 from the current 39 mt.
“There have been so many grain-based distilleries come up in the last few years, some even without government subsidy. The growth has impacted maize prices. Since hybrids can help farmers reap 5-5.5 tonnes of maize from one hectare, at Rs 2400/quintal rate, a farmer can earn Rs 1.32 lakh from one season only from maize, whereas from soyabean he/she can earn ₹67,500 from one hectare at the productivity level of 1.5 tonne/hectare,” said an industry source.
The minimum support price of maize is ₹2,225/quintal, whereas its all-India average selling price in agriculture produce marketing committee yards (mandis) in January (1-23) was ₹2,273/quintal. In Uttar Pradesh, on an average, maize farmers have realised over Rs 2,400/quintal and in Rajasthan over ₹2,375/quintal this month. The all-India average rate in October 2024 was about ₹2,100/quintal, official sources said, attributing the below MSP sales to higher moisture content.
NMEO outlay
The mustard acreage in current Rabi season has dropped 5 per cent to 89.3 lakh hectares (lh) while in the last kharif season, the soybean area fell over 2 per cent to 129.35 lh.
The government in October last year had announced the National Mission on Edible Oil (Oilseeds) with an estimated cost of Rs 10,103 crore to be implemented over next six years with a target to increase the production of primary oilseed crops to 69.7 million tonnes (mt) by 2030-31 from about 39 mt in 2022-23. Together with NMEO-OP (Oil Palm), the Mission targets to increase domestic edible oil production to 25.45 mt by 2030-31 meeting around 72 per cent of our projected domestic requirement.
The Union Agriculture Ministry, for the first time, has been conducting a survey on edible oil using “My Gov” platform with the objective to formulate policy according to what consumers want, so that farmers benefit from growing demand-driven crops and help country move towards self-sufficiency in edible oil. The survey, launched on the My Gov platform from January 9, will close on February 23 and the ministry’s statistical division will analyse the response and prepare a report.